Slender Man
by T-1000000
Summary: Coming to the city of Los Angeles, the being known to humans as Slender Man may have just found his true calling...a superhero? Welcome to a brave new world, folks...
1. (Prologue) How we got here

_Darjil-Kentaar_.

Slender Man.

A fitting moniker, as I am thinner than most of my kind. Of course, that is the best my name, as well as any of the words in my language, can be spoken by humans. The true tongue of the _skeentesh_, The People like Trees, is unpronounceable by human vocal cords.

Not many have learned this. Not many have bothered, for their minds have been filled with too much paranoia to bother trying to understand my presence in this decayed world.

I am of the _krayatvar_ caste. It is my duty-my very _being_-to protect my people, to find the criminal element and strip their flesh and muscles from their bones. Only then, can the innocents be at peace.

Of course, there are still some criminals even we _skeentesh_ cannot find a way to kill, most of them dimension traveling cretins such as the creature that calls himself Smile Dog. For them, though, there is still no escape from the hands of the law-_Tenilk-Tanark_, Abattoir's Ark. A device known as the _Sešcir_, the Light, is held over them just before the switch at the end of the device is flipped and a blue light teleports them to a designated cell within _Tenil-Tanark_.

But not even my tentacles (which only the _krayatvar_ are born with) and the _Sešcir_ can put _**him **_away. The monster in the night, the shadow that even cold-blooded murderers and rapists tell tales of to disturb each other. The most vile creature you could think of, the sea that the river of grieving blood empties into.

_Targen-Genock_.

_**The Operator**_.

The disgusting excuse for a _skeentesh _is the very offspring of repulsion. He seems to think that he can do the atrocities he does because he consider himself stronger, and therefore capable of doing it. This would not be quite different from the other leeches and psychopaths in my homeworld, were it not for the fact that he enjoys...children.

There is little more precious to a _skeentesh _than a child. It is the birth of a child that seals a bond between a man and woman. Such things are of no meaning to The Operator, who takes them, tortures them to death, and records their dying screams and leaves the tape behind as his little "calling card", along with carving the _Pardtel_, the Zero (the insignia which simplifies my faceless species), into the tape recorder. He often leaves notes saying that he enjoyed murdering the innocent child, his twisted ideology believing that he proved the power will of a god by murdering those whose only crime was being weaker than him.

One would say that what he does is...nothing more than common psychopathy. That...he is just another stain on society. That..._I am __**overreacting**_.

_**I AM NOT! HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOUR ONLY SON WAS ABDUCTED, STRIPPED, AND MOLESTED TO DEATH?! AND THE LITTLE BITCH THAT DID LEFT A NOTE SAYING THAT IT PROVED HIM A DEITY?! HOW WOULD **__**YOU**_ _**FEEL?!**_

I...I apologize for my outburst. But my rage-it is what drives me, further towards him, after all that occurred afterwards…

"Enter" High Elektern _Selik-Odar_ growled as I took a deep breath and exhaled, before pushing the door open. You could not blame him;I had always been something of a headache for him.

"So, you at least had the decency to come on time. Please, take a seat, _Darjil-Kentaar_. Pray that you have had time to plan your upcoming speech."

I did as I was told and slipped onto the chair, taking care to sit incredibly straight so as to at least make a good first impression. I scratched the "suit" on my body. We _skeentesh_ do not actually have clothes, or a dress code for that matter-if we feel like "wearing" what we want to wear, we simply think of it and command our bodies to change "clothes".

"Hopefully, you have remembered just _why _I called you into my office?" _Selik-Odar_ asked derisively. I was surprised by his level of contempt. Surely, my actions could not have enraged him this greatly.

"You have been concerned with my actions relating to the search for _Targen-Genock_, yes?" I answered flatly.

"_Concerned? _Disgusted would be a much better word really! You have chased after this psychopath with reckless abandon, and have led to the deaths of three of your fellow _krayatvar_! You have broken into several public buildings without an access warrant, and have killed several _skeentesh_ that later turned out to have absolutely no connections to _Targen-Genock_!" _Selik-Odar_ roared to the point that if he had a mouth, I have no doubt he would have been frothing. I turned my head back twice and saw several _krayatvar_ staring through the frosted glass before continuing with their own business.

"Well, somebody has to look for him! And since all of the other _krayatvar_ are too busy sitting on their asses, killing the common shoplifter and drug dealer, _I_ am the one that has to deal with a true monstrosity! You want me to stop? Then get everyone else to actually do something meaningful by butchering that animal!" I hissed with an edge of annoyance and pure frustration.

"_**EXCUSE ME?!**_" _Selik-Odar_ growled, those two words being my only warning of his incoming rant. "How **dare** you insult your fellow _krayatvar_? They have worked from dawn to dusk, risked their lives, trying to cleanse this world of its criminal element, and you know what you do? You endanger their lives even further, chasing after some ghost because of a personal vendetta, not caring for the innocents that get caught in your crossfire! You push your comrades to the side because they don't want to go on suicide missions with you, and you have the nerve to call them _lazy_! You want to become some renegade vigilante, is that what you want?!"

"_WHAT IF I DO?!_" I screamed, not really thinking about what was coming out of my mouth, anger clouding my judgement. I was not known for being very much of an orator.

_Selik-Odar_ stood up, looking ready to strike me down then and there, before he suddenly switched to a cold, venomous demeanor, his voice a calculating flatline.

"Very well. Your services are no longer needed or wanted, and your right to kill is officially revoked. You are dismissed."

I shot up from the chair, my blood boiling with rage. How could he do this to me? One of his most trusted _krayatvar_, and his most devoted and relentless. In a final yet meager act of anger, I picked up the chair and threw it into the wall behind _Selik-Odar_. Before he could react, I turned and stormed out of his office, slamming the door shut behind me. All of the other _skeentesh_ were staring right at me, obviously having heard the brief yet vicious argument that had taken place.

"What are you lazy assholes staring at? Shouldn't you be doing your work for once in your pathetic lives?!" I spat at them, shoving several out of the way and throwing the front doors to the headquarters open.

The Operator was on my mind.

He was the _**only**_ thing on my mind.

The huge abandoned gray steel factory rotted alone in the middle of the parched desert. For two weeks, I had been gathering as much information on The Operator as I possibly could. Recycled printed reports, informants, archives at libraries. It had been one large paper trail leading to this very factory, where I intended to settle the score for good. Or so I believed.

I slowly pushed open the front door, squeezing myself in so The Operator could not hear me coming in. The place was incredibly dark, to the point that I could barely see my own hands. It smelled of rusty iron, almost like feces. I would have surely wandered around hopelessly before walking into a potential trap of The Operator's, which I have no doubt he had set up in case anyone snuck in. Luckily, a _krayatvar_ is not just born with tentacles. We can open our minds and infiltrate the minds of others to see their memories and thoughts, an easy way of flushing out criminals.

It was uncomfortable to sift through the monster's mind. So many thoughts of glee as he listened closely to the dying screams of children, him reminding them that he was a god because he was willing to kill such "weak" things as them, his pleasure as he licked their cold dead flesh and bathed in their blood-

Ah, yes! There he was. On the third story, in the second-to-left corridor, in the room marked **Ψ**395. I teleported myself up to the open door, another ability only the _krayatvar_ possessed. This bastard was a pure idiot if he thought his pissy little traps would be of any use against a _krayatvar_.

I walked into the room, using all my strength to try to not cough from the stench of peeling paint and decaying steel and wood. Looking around, I became very confused, even frustrated. Where was he?! He was right here in this room when I was searching for him, he couldn't have just vanished into thin air! I spun around and looked behind me, uneasily turning back to the room. It felt as if though the shadows themselves were alive and eager to trap me here. A chill ran up my spine. It hadn't felt this cold before during my short time in this factory.

Suddenly, without warning, the door slammed shut behind me with a nerve racking _KLANG!_, like the sound of chains. And that was when I finally saw him;he looked similar to me, really. No face, no hair on his neck, head, or hands, a suit, and standing at about eight feet tall. The only difference was that his body was more muscular and bulkier, and he had no tentacles. Perhaps he had taken such an appearance so as to mock me.

"Well, well...look who just couldn't leave well enough alone!" The Operator tsked. My blood began to boil;so, this bitch wanted to play games? Well, then I was going to be playing hardball with his skull.

"I didn't come here to socialize, you piece of perverted, twisted shit!" I snarled, trying to keep him laid back and unexpecting of my upcoming attack.

"No, I suppose not. After all, if you can't even make idle conversation with your own boss, what chance do you have a simple little fellow like me?" he asked in a mockingly friendly tone.

That did it. With a cry of rage and hatred, I teleported in front of him, my arm already outstretched and my fist balled up, ready to punch the front of his skull into a fine powder. My fist met the air instead, as he stepped to the side and, in a flash, was on my right of the room. I cursed myself for not remembering that The Operator was capable of "flash-stepping", an ability making him able to move faster than the naked eye could see. Just as I turned my head, he sprinted forward with a yell, punching me in the head and sending me flying through the wall, showering me in peeling paint and thick combs of dust.

The leftmost side of my face began restructuring itself from the blow as my tentacles pushed me back up, just in time as The Operator sped through the hole in the wall. I teleported behind him, making him trip over the table in the room. I leaped into the air and came down with a hammer fist to the back of his skull, laughing as I heard the bones in his skull shatter and crumple. I slashed his back four times with my bottom two tentacles before stomping on his spine. I reveled in The Operator's shriek of pain, even though we both knew that such wounds were of little concern to the _skeentesh_ and could heal within a matter of minutes at most.

He telekinetically forced me off of him, fracturing several of the bones in my back as I landed. Still healing and struggling to get back up, The Operator telekinetically lifted the table and launched it at me. Time seemed to slow down around me as I just barely managed to stop it with my own telekinesis, a battle of mental strength occurring between The Operator and I, the table nearly being pulled apart as it was tugged in two directions.

"Why don't we just be gentleman, huh? Shake hands, put these petty grudges aside. You look like you need to lighten up!" The Operator laughed as he struggled, spitting blood from his _ornukan_, the pocket on his left side used for breathing, drinking, and feeding, the _skeentesh_ version of a mouth.

I knew that he was trying to get me to lose my concentration so he could pull the table back in his favor and shred me in half. I was truly appalled at how stupid he thought I was, to give in to his tricks. Alas, The Operator was not a very mentally strong individual, seeing as to how I was constantly tugging at the table and he was occasionally pulling it back.

At last, I tore the table from his hold and flung it at him at approximately six hundred and seventy _geliaks_. Lucky enough for him, then, that he managed to leap out of the way just in time, lest he would have been cleanly sheared horizontally in half. I would have enjoyed seeing his halved remains.

Struggling back to his feet, The Operator clenched his right hand into a tight fist, his knuckles turning brown from the sheer grip. If he was anything besides psychopathic, it was that The Operator made himself much too obvious.

He ran straight at me, a black and white blur as his right arm stretched forward, ready to deliver a punch capable of splitting my skull in half and and sending my brain flying of its stem. Alas, his obviousness made his fruitless attempts all the more laughable, as I teleported right behind him just as he was about to send me flying back.

"Wha-?"

The sound of The Operator's spine tearing in half as I impaled him with a tentacle was music indeed;he looked down, before turning his head, his skin even more pale than usual. His _ornukan _was now practically vomiting blood as he slid off the tentacle, blood oozing from the hole in his back and torso.

"Perhaps...I should savor your final sounds;record them, maybe?" I suggested mockingly, referring to his _modus operandi_. To my shock, his response was not one of a dying moan, but rather **laughter** as he pulled out his recording device. His thumb pressed the red button on the top corner, and even though it made a buzzing sound, I saw that there was no tape inside.

Why should I go alone? Why not come with me? We can hold hands, see the sights of the other side...true lovers die hand-in-hand" The Operator giggled.

"_What the fuck are you talking about?!_" I screamed at him, picking him up by the shoulders and shaking him as the room suddenly felt warmer-a lot warmer.

"Oh, you! Don't you know how a hydron can be activated? Oh, surely, you know!" The Operator giggled.

The son of a bitch-he had set this up! There was a hydron under this factory, just one of which was capable of reducing up to twenty miles to mere ash, and hot enough to reduce an individual to their basic particles.

I suddenly pressed my hands onto his head, ready to crush his skull and teleport away, leaving The Operator to be vaporized. Unfortunately, fate was once again turning its back on me, as the white light of the exploding hydron suddenly erupted from below, moving in like a wall, ready to consume us. I teleported away as fast as I could, only to remember that I was still holding onto The Operator, and that anything carried during teleportation was also teleported away.

A small amount of myself and The Operator still remained in the room as we were being teleported away when the hydron blast hit us. The sheer heat, the flames-it ripped through me, stabbing at my nerves like a thousand knives, biting at my flesh;it was something I never wish to experience ever again. But what was even worse was the explosion tearing into my teleportation. I shrieked madly, my whole being feeling so _wrong_ as I flew through the slipstream, swirls of light and vague images flashing by me before I lost consciousness.

I still do not know for how long I was blacked out. But when my vision returned, I received my first hint that I was no longer in my realm. As I pushed myself up off the ground, I saw several skinny brown trees with weak branches, with nary a leaf on them. The ground was dry and sandy like the desert was, but there was much less sand here, and several weeds were taking root.

I looked around and took in my surroundings in full. For miles upon miles, there was nothing but the dessicated desert and a weak tree here and there. _Perhaps I was teleported to the Nybarng plains_, I had thought to myself. I cursed after that though;the Nybarng plains were on the other side of my planet.

But how wrong I turned out to be. As I cautiously walked through the vast plain, with my mind outstretched to look for any potential danger, my mind was suddenly filled with the most bizarre, outright incomprehensibly thoughts I had ever touched. Even The Operator's mind was less puzzling than whatever was thinking this!

As I swiftly turned to the left in the direction of the thoughts, I saw a herd of…things. They were rather crouched over, with thin arms in front and long yet obviously powerful legs that the creatures seemed to be hopping with. Their eyes were black and beady, and their ears were pointed upwards. They had large wet black noses and light brown fur. On several of their stomachs were pouches with what appeared to be smaller versions of the things in them. In time, I would eventually come to learn that these creatures were called kangaroos, but I did not know that yet.

The creatures suddenly stopped and looked directly at me;they seemed to sniff the air intensely. as I readied my tentacles and fists in case these things decided to attack, one of them decided to test its luck and hopped up to me, before it made its final and most stupid decision:it actually tried to kick me in the gut! Alas, it was too slow for the natural reflexes of a _skeentesh_, and, faster than the eye could blink, I tore its legs off. It fell to the ground, releasing a painfully shrill screech that nearly shattered my eardrums, while blood flowed from the stumps. I smashed its own legs onto its head, instantly shattering it skull. The other kangaroos immediately bounded away, hopping on their legs as I looked back down at my kill, and then realized what I had done:I had left the little one all alone now, defenseless.

The baby kangaroo was still in its mothers pouch, its barely open and only several bristles of fur upon its newborn pink body. It was clear that it would die a painful death by starvation and dehydration since it was too weak to even leave the pouch by itself. As much as I hated to accept the fact, I knew that it now deserved a much quicker and more humane death. I grabbed its thin neck and made it looked to the right before I grabbed the head and made it spin to the left, snapping its neck. I dropped the baby and fell to my knees;though I believed in no gods, I still prayed to whatever may have listened to me for this murder of a child, even if it was euthanasia.

After approximately four hours of silent prayer, I stood up, dusted off my knees and ankles, and continued my trek through this increasingly bizarre landscape. The sun was beginning to set and the sky turned a shimmering mixture of purple and orange, the stars beginning to come alive slowly. Above me, I heard a rough flapping, and saw a hideous hair-covered demon with wings several feet long and constructed of pure leather. Of course, I would learn that these things were known as bats and were simply ugly animals, not true demons. I heard a barking and turned to see a wolf-like beast with pricked ears and orange fur. It looked somewhat like Smile Dog, though obviously not taking the form of a Siberian Husky and not smiling like a psychopath. The dingo, as I eventually learned, seemed to sniff me from far off and then turned and ran, howling with apparent terror and its tail between its legs.

Through my whole trek in this forsaken prison, there was not a single drop of water. If there were any sapient creatures here, how could they possibly survive? I was sure that those demon bats would snatch them from the ground and feast on them in the air, their blood becoming the rain.

After approximately seven hours of walking through this strange land, the night had taken over and I decided to rest against a nearby tree, which was about two feet shorter than myself. I picked up a worm and shoved it into my _ornukan_. I didn't realize until after I had digested the worm that I was suddenly starving. And soon, I found out that I was not the only one.

I heard the sand being crushed from several feet away and lazily peeked out from my slumped position. These beings were unlike any I had ever seen;they were muscular yet slender, many of them having long black and white hair. Their skin was black and their noses large, with prominent white markings on the faces of who I eventually learned were the men. In their hands were primitive spears and shields made of dry wood.

"Hello!" I called in the _skeentesh_ language as I stood up and waved my right arm. These people halted instantly and seemed to size me up for a good minute before one of them shouted something incomprehensible and several of the women screamed and hid their children behind them. The man who had shouted pulled back his right arm before he hurled his spear. It went right through my stomach and poked out from my back, just barely missing my spine.

I was then enraged. How could these barbarians try to kill me when I had simply been trying to get their attention, and to ask where I was? My hate turned towards the man who had thrown the spear. I tore the spear out, the wound already healing rapidly, before I threw it right where his central chest cavity was. I enhanced the power of the throw with my telekinesis, and the spear tore right through his chest and ribcage before it burst from his back and fell to the ground, the upper column of his spine also slowly falling out. The rest of the group shrieked in terror and immediately sprinted away. And so, my experiences with humanity had begun.

For all these millennia, I have run into these beings that call themselves humans. They have no idea how to react to another intelligent creature, not even one trying to find his way home. They run and shriek in terror, and in some cases, try their best to attack and kill me. Every time it looks like I will make contact, they turn tail and run. Their fear and utter paranoia seems to grow whenever I am around, a product of their own inability to understand what I am, and how I came to their world.

Their methods of law are also subpar. I have come across their criminals thousands of times-rapists, mass murderers, child molesters, arsonists. They always never get caught, escape, or are let free due to their overly soft judicial systems. I peer into their minds, and I find fantasy worlds consisting of torture and blood. It sickens me that a man who has molested and murdered an innocent girl is allowed to walk freely amongst innocents. But, I find them. I tried to send a message to their kind by impaling them, tearing their organs out of their bodies, just generally making them feel as much pain as they made their victims feel. But of course, humanity is too soft, and views me as the true monster even though I clean up their society.

And then, there are the delusional and demented ones. They know well of me, and see me as a god;funny how that is. But it stops being funny when they believe I am giving them orders and they begin stalking, mentally torturing, and even murdering others because they believe I told them something. They call themselves proxies, and believe that they are prophets spreading the word. Somewhat like a pathetic attempt at being like Smile Dog.

But humanity is not a completely rancid collection of primates;no species is. In that, I find them to be somewhat like my people. I remember the time I was wandering through this city called Stirling, which is coincidentally in the same continent known as Australia that I ended up in when I first came to this world. I watched as over a dozen children played in this area humans call a playground. An adult woman, who I presume was a parent of one of the children, lifted a device called a camera and took a photograph;I was standing there in the shade of a tree, with several children sitting around me. They actually seemed quite eager to learn who I was, seeing as to how I looked nothing like them. I tried as best as I could to explain myself without terrifying their young minds. I do not know why, but when that woman took her picture, I did not appear in the lens.

That same day, as night was approaching, I was scanning through a stand selling newspapers. The central top headline instantly struck me:

**FOURTEEN CHILDREN FOUND MISSING LATE THIS AFTERNOON.**

I was utterly shocked. How did this kidnapping happen so quickly? Was there someone watching me? That seemed to be the only explanation as to how fourteen children suddenly vanished after I was at the playground. A week later, I found out I was right.

As I walked amongst the trees and shrub, I noticed a peculiar scent that seemed to be not far from me. I decided to walk up to the front door of this library, pushing myself up a tree. It was late in the afternoon, and there was nary a person around. I teleported myself into the library, and immediately I was confronted by the smell of smoke. I turned to my right and pushed past several bookshelves before being greeted by the thick black soot and ash. If I had a mouth on my head, I would have undoubtedly started choking.

I made my way through the smoke, thankful that my vision did not require eyes and was therefore one hundred times stronger than the sight of a human. The orange and yellow flames became clearer and clearer, twisting through the librarian's lounge and hungrily eating at the tiled floor and beige walls. I thought I could see something through the fire, like several little squirming entities…

"I WANT HOME!" I heard a child scream.

The children! They were the ones in there, about to be burned to death;I had to get them out of there right now, or else, from what I saw, they would be quickly burned alive. I kicked down the screen door leading into the lounge and slammed my fist into one of the red Emergency Sprinkler activators, and immediately, water showered from the ceiling and hit the ground. I wondered why the smoke had not already activated the sprinklers. I then teleported myself into the middle of the ring of fire, where the children were.

"LOOK! It's the Slender person!" one the children, a boy with deep green eyes and matted blond hair, gasped with first shock, and then glee. The other children either cheered or looked upon me with awe.

"Please, stay calm" I urged them as I gathered three under each of my arms and one wrapped in each of my eight tentacles. I should have said the same thing to myself as I looked at the floor...and saw the _Pardtel_ scratched into a tile. I literally screamed out loud enough that several nearby windows broke. He did this!

"Is everything okay, Mr. Slender?" a little girl, who could not have been more than seven, asked me, her face covered with soot.

"Do not worry about me" I simply told her before I teleported myself and the children out of the library. I heard the sound of sirens approaching from several blocks away. I laid the children down.

"Go, now. Find your families" I told them before I teleported myself far away.

Now, ever since that fateful day, I spend every second and day of my life searching for him. The Operator. He had been teleported to this world with me. And now, I shall not stop wandering until I find and kill him for good, and then, find my way back home. But until then, there is little purpose for me but to wander.

I come now upon a city, one filled with lights and the constant honking of the horns of cars. In one of the human languages, its name means "City of Angels". Though, having known humanity for so long, I expect anything but…

(_**NEXT ISSUE:**_A struggling, down on his luck Los Angeles newspaper reporter is called in to write about a strange new vigilante...a grotesque vigilante, one who brutally kills his victims and who eyewitnesses can only describe as tall, thin, and wearing a suit. Who-or what-is he? All this in _Slender Man #1:News Story of the Year_.)


	2. News Story of the Year

_#1:News Story of the Year_

Sitting upon 202 West 1st Street, the Los Angeles Times Building served as the headquarters of the city's biggest newspaper since December 4, 1881, even when it was bought by the Tribune Company in 2000. Even though print was slowly falling out of favor all over the world, the Los Angeles Times had a knack for delivering sales; in 2008, it was the most widely circulated metropolitan newspaper. Of course, even the Times weren't immune to declining sales, and part of it may have been because of the man currently sitting in his cubicle, ready to doze off on his keyboard.

Wearing a brown stitched leather jacket over his Anthrax t-shirt despite the fact that it was seventy three degrees Fahrenheit in the city, his emotionless brown eyes reflected very little light and immediately set off alarms about how bored he was while his face sagged and his mouth perpetually grimaced. Yes, this month was one _boring _month.

Armando Ortiz had lived most of his childhood in a run-down apartment on skid row, with two immigrant parents from Tijuana who barely spoke English, two brothers, and one shitty water heater; the air conditioning was nonexistent. Still, despite what he had faced as a mere kid, he had sworn to grow up to be something better than the violent liquor store robbers he had lived alongside up until the age of eighteen. He loved the art of journalism, the technique of taking pictures and letting them tell the story, the challenge to create a headline to instantly hook people in.

But he hadn't counted on his parents being so disappointed, waiting until he had told them of his chosen major that they had wanted him to play football (_real_ football, not that bastardized rugby Americans loved for some damn reason). He had been angry that they didn't tell him this before, and he hadn't spoken to his parents since.

His real push towards journalism, though, was when his older brother Eduardo had joined the MS-13 and had been killed in a street fight after he had gotten seven drinks; he was just twenty nine. A year after that, Armando had finished his education and had applied for a job at the L.A. Times, describing his poor upbringing and his brothers death as to why he wanted to be a newspaper reporter during his interview. He had promptly been given a job reporting for the crime and law section.

Unfortunately for Armando, that was as far as his luck went. All of his stories were known for poor reporting, with critics citing the lackluster or even nonexistent pictures to help the stories stand out, along with how Armando's writing made him seem like a bored and lifeless robot. It didn't help that he just wasn't any good at finding exciting and shocking stories worthy of even being featured on page seven. The fact that he worked in Los Angeles made it all the more pathetic.

"Hey, Armando! Can you copy these papers for me?" he heard a grating, almost condescending voice ask him. Turning around to face the asker, Armando couldn't help but scowl slightly as he saw just who it was.

The Caucasian man wore muddy brown khakis and a buttoned navy blue Polo shirt with no jacket, as he had nothing casual to hide at the workplace. His wavy brown hair was matted to the side and shined with the glow of obvious gel. His arms and legs were thickly built and rippling with muscle that was more suited for the NFL than the newspaper business. Upon his face was a grin that put his shining white teeth on display, but this grin was filled with mockery rather than any real happiness or satisfaction.

"Sure, Trey. Sure, I can do that for you" Armando grunted as he took the papers.

"I mean, _if _you can even do _that_" Trey sneered before he turned and walked away. Armando glared daggers at him, feeling the urge to punch him the neck.

Trey Gardner was the walking definition of a jock, even though he worked for the Los Angeles Times. Every time his back was turned, the women-or, as Armando liked to call them, "make-up wearing skeletons"-both at the workplace and in L.A. in general giddily gossiped about getting in bed with his steroid-pumped body. He was known for delivering on his news subject of sports, something he would know since he had played bastardized rugby in high school and in his first year of college, only dropping it and changing to journalism when he hadn't gotten any offers from the NFL in his first year. His parents were ridiculously wealthy and had more than their fair share of connections, and there were rumors that the reason nobody reprimanded him whenever he wasn't doing any work was because of his money, but also due to fear of getting on his bad side; guys like Rainer Mueller were the most frequent targets of his verbal abuse because they had the guts to tell him what he really was.

Armando got out of his cubicle and walked over to the copying room, though the name was something of a misnomer, as the room wasn't just used for copying; people also printed papers and stored papers later to be used in large file cabinets. He noticed that the room was busier and more crowded than usual, with the smell of lingering coffee from the lounge matching the grumbling of people bumping into and shoving each other aside.

Making his way to the copying machine, Armando was about to place the papers on the panel when he heard another familiar voice calling out for him. He had to admit, he was popular, for all the wrong reasons.

"ORTIZ! GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!"

Armando sighed loudly as he walked towards the office of the Times' editor-in-chief and publisher, Thomas Hellner. If there was one thing he hated more than Trey Gardner opening his mouth, it was having to listen to another tirade directed towards him by Hellner.

Opening the door into Hellner's office, Armando saw Gardner leaning onto one of the windows, grinning maliciously.

"Another shitty story got you in trouble?" Trey asked mockingly.

"Go shove your face into your ass" Armando spat; he felt a bit happier inside when he saw Trey frown and his eyes bulge with anger.

"Hurry up, Ortiz! Gardner, shut your damn mouth!" Hellner shouted.

Closing the door behind him, Armando was just glad that Hellner was one of the few people not afraid of telling Trey to go piss off, since he was, after all, the boss.

Thomas Hellner looked the same as always. He was a tall black man, standing at around six feet and two inches, his expensive Italian brown leather shoes a size twelve. Despite the fact that he was nearing the age of sixty seven, his arms were still moderately muscular, but that wasn't what made him frightening to his employees, and practically everyone else. No, what made him scary was his ability to really _scream_, a barking so vicious and dripping with anger that it could make anyone cower back and hastily nod their head while they stuttered, "y-yes s-s-sir!" That, and his hawk-like gaze from behind his frosted glasses, which was a persons only warning before they had to cover their ears. He usually dressed in his black Ralph Lauren pants and blue dress shirt, telling everyone that he was a man of taste.

"Uh, you wanted to see me, Mr. Hellner?" Armando asked nervously.

"No, I just called you for my entertainment!" Hellner sarcastically spat. "Yes, I wanted to see you! I just got a call that there was an attempted rape and triple homicide at East 3rd Street at skid row, but from what I heard from the detective, this case is an..._unusual _one."

Armando raised an eyebrow. Skid row was one of the worst places in Los Angeles, filled with greedy homeless scumbags, sadistic gangsters, and shopkeepers armed to the teeth and ready to kill anyone who tried to break in or steal from them. Just what was it about a triple homicide and attempted rape that was unusual?

"Alright, I'll drive there right now Mr. Hellner. I promise you, this is gonna be the story we need to get sales up!"

"Damn right!" Hellner growled. "If you screw this up, Ortiz, I'm gonna throw you out this window!" he threatened while pointing to the window right behind him.

Armando walked out and breathed a sigh of relief. Turning to the left to head to the elevator, he saw that Trey was still leaning against the window, the smirk back on his face.

"Which story did you write that pissed him off this time, Ortiz?" Trey chuckled.

This time, however, Armando was able to grin with malice. At least he was getting some work right now.

"Can you copy these papers for me?" he asked as he shoved the papers back into Treys hands.

As he walked into the elevator, Armando's grin grew wider as he heard Trey growl, "_Goddamit! Fucking shit!_"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Parking under a streetlight, Armando hurried out of his car and turned a corner, coming onto East 3rd Street. This crime scene looked like a huge one, as almost the entire street was blocked off by police tape, roadblocks, and police officers, as well as a handful of TV news reporters.

"Armando Ortiz of the Los Angeles Times" he said as one of the cops viewed his ID. Nodding, the cop moved aside a strip of tape and a roadblock and ushered him onto the scene.

Almost immediately, he could see that chaos had roamed this street with disregard several hours before. Several metal trash cans were strewn all over a sidewalk, garbage spilling onto the street and the rotten stench of it pervading the air. Were it not for his five years of experience reporting crime in the city, he would have surely gagged at what he saw next.

Several feet up ahead, the right sidewalk was covered with drying blood and pieces of bone, which the forensic detectives were busy scraping up. Right next to that were several long, winding tire tracks; obviously, the driver had been in a real hurry. The shop to the left across the street had an entire window smashed to tiny shards, which were also being picked up and being collected for evidence.

"Any eyewitnesses here, Sergeant?" Armando asked as he glanced at the cops badge.

"Yeah, just one. That woman in the jeans and black tank top over there, in front of the tire tracks" the sergeant answered as he pointed to a clearly distraught woman talking to one of the cops, who shook his head and silently walked away as Armando walked up to her.

"Hello, I'm Armando Ortiz. I'm the writer for crime and law section of the Los Angeles Times" he introduced himself.

"Oh, you're _that _writer" the woman sneered.

He frowned. "Yeah, yeah, woman, I'm _that _writer! Now, look, can you please give me your name and tell me just what the hell happened here?"

The woman looked down, uncertainty on her face, before she sighed and looked back up to face Armando.

"My name is Erica Clark, and last night, at about five o'clock in the morning…"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

_That midget asshole-why the hell did he think she was so stupid? Yet again, that greedy shithead Adam-who ran the Food & Drug Shelter store on East 3rd Street-had tried to eat her wallet, and once again, she had proved to him that she wasn't retarded._

_She had paid eleven dollars and twenty five cents for the mere six pack of beer and gallon of milk, yet he had tried to point out that she had only paid eleven dollars and twenty cents, even though she had actually paid three cents more than what it all actually cost. After a minute of arguing, she had taken the money, counted it aloud in front of him, and then told him to not bother giving her change because he would probably give her less than the real amount._

_As she carried the grocery bag to her car, something tugged at her hair. She let out a yelp as she fell backwards, while the bag dropped and two bottles of beer shattered; suddenly, she was hit in the back and was sent flying forward, falling onto the sidewalk pavement. A large hand grabbed her hair again and flipped her over, so that she was now looking at three tall, gangly black men, all of them dressed in blue._

_Crips._

"_Aw, look at you!" the crip in the center laughed, his voice incredibly slurred and the stench of alcohol reaching her nose. As he talked, she could see that four of his teeth were missing._

"_Get the fuck away from me, you piece of ghetto dog shit!" she spat at him, trying to not let them win through intimidation, at the very least._

"_Now, now, that's not how you talk to Mr. Biggie!" the center crip giggled as he wagged his finger mockingly. The two crips next to him looked as if though they were trying so hard to not laugh._

_The center crip crouched down, hissing, "And I do mean, __**BIGGIE**__!" The two other crips just couldn't hold it back any more and burst into childish giggles. He unzipped his pants before he threw the front of her skirt up and started slowly, gently pulling her panties down…_

_...and that was when she threw her knee up and slammed it into his stomach. The center crip was launched off of her before he crashed into the pavement, clutching at his stomach and wheezing._

"_Motherfucker! Goddamn ho, I'm gonna fuck up that nigga real hard!" he painfully gasped in between breaths._

_The crip to the left of the center crip helped him up before he brought his foot down on her torso three times, as the center crip now stared down at her with hate._

"_So that's how you wanna play, huh you little cunt?! Well then, I'm gonna get a nice gift from Adam when I show him your pretty white teeth, you fuckin' ho!" he growled as he brought out a baseball bat from his pants leg._

_Time seemed to slow down as the center crip readied his bat, when she saw, standing just behind the three gangsters, some freakish humanoid...__**thing**__. It looked to be around eight feet tall, apparently wearing some kind of suit with a red tie, from what she was able to make out. It was incredibly thin, and its arms looked to be at least four feet long. The most grotesque feature it possessed, though, was the fact that not only was it completely bald, but it had neither ears nor a face. And were those wriggling, slimy things from behind the creature….__**tentacles**__?!_

_One of the tentacles struck out so it was a few inches from the leftmost crips neck, before it flashed to the right, and with that, his head fell off his neck and bounced away. It was not a clean decapitation; a lot of muscle had been pushed out from the area where the head and neck were connected, and a part of the spinal cord stuck out as blood slowly gushed from the stump, before the body collapsed backwards and twitched for two more seconds and then stopped._

_The two remaining crips first looked at their fallen friends headless corpse, and then turned to the towering monstrosity before them._

"_**Oh, shit**_…" _the center crip gasped, before anger swept over his face and he let loose a blood curdling cry and charged. He pulled the baseball bat back before he swung, and he was mere inches from striking the creature...before the attempted hit simply stopped dead._

"_What the fuck?! I can't move! __**I can't move!**_" _he cried, sweat visibly accumulating in his armpits before his body suddenly levitated and then, just a second later, he was flung by some invisible force into the shoe store across the street. He crashed through the window on the right and the security alarms instantly went off._

_The creature turned its attention upon the last crip, who had not yet done anything at all and was literally pissing himself, urine flowing down his pants and staining the sidewalk and his shoes. He decided to be smart and ran to the left...only for the creature to vanish from its original spot and reappear right in front of the man. He tried to run back to the right...and the creature teleported right back there. Once again, he tried to run to the left...and was stopped in his tracks by the creature._

"_Please" the man sobbed, falling to his knees. "Please! Don't kill me too! I'll give you anything you want! Here, I'll even give you my whole twenty dollars!" he yammered as he took out his wallet and tossed twenty dollars to the ground in front of the creature._

"_Just don't kill me! Please!"_

_The creature moved its head from side to side, slowly, seeming to contemplate what this crying scum was saying. Then, in a voice that echoed and reverbed, like multiple demonic voices speaking in unison, it said:_

"_**I do not desire your currency, you miserable excrement. I came for you; it is your presence that stains this City of Angels, which has no room for demons like you.**_"

_Having given its answer, its tentacles slithered down before they extended forwards, tearing through the gangsters chest and torso before exiting from his back. Before the man could even open his mouth in pain, he was lifted off the ground and the tentacles went in different directions, pulling the man apart into eight halves before they retracted; the gangsters now-split face still looked like it was in shock as his remains hit the ground with a wet noise._

_Staring down at the remains, the creature heard her grabbing the wet bag and throwing open the door into the drivers seat of her car, and it shot its gaze towards her despite its lack of eyes. She nearly threw her bag onto the passenger seat as it started walking towards her car. Fearing for her life a second time tonight, she slammed the door shut and jammed the key into the ignition._

_The tires screeched as she drove about thirty miles past the speed limit, and she was ready to breath a sigh of relief as she looked back...and saw that the creature was simply gone._

_Shocked, she turned her eyes back towards the road just as her lights washed over it. It simply stood there, still as a statue save for the squirming tentacles._

_Screaming in rage, she sped up, fully intending to splatter this beast all over the road and her hood and windshield, when it vanished again._

_Looking back once more, she saw it suddenly appear just a few feet behind her car. It just stood there, staring, arms outstretched._

_Deciding that it was best to leave it alone, she looked back at the road, her car having slowly sped to the left due to her lack of attention. It slammed into several trash cans, spilling garbage everywhere and throwing off some sparks as the hood and tires grated against the steel._

_Driving back onto the road, she realized how much the police would laugh at her story of a teleporting, faceless man, so she decided to just tell them of how someone had slaughtered the gangsters._

_Tonight, she was just lucky to survive Los Angeles...and whatever the hell that __**thing **__was._

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"...sooooo...yeah. That's how it went down" Erica finished.

Armando finished writing down the basic notes on what happened in the story on his document in Google Drive. He looked back up to Erica.

"Alright then, Ms. Clark, I just have a few questions to ask you. Did you drink heavy amounts of any alcohol last night?" he asked her.

"No."

"Have you ever taken any drugs besides medically required substances?"

"Umm...no."

"Did you suffer any major head trauma when those three gangsters knocked you down last night?"

"Well, the doctor said I suffered several bruises and my nose was nearly broken, but nothing really b-hey, wait a minute!" she snapped as she realized what Armando was getting at. "Are you trying to say I imagined this?!"

"Look, m'am-"

"Don't you see the blood and bones? The shattered window?!" she cried, forcing Armando to quickly calm things down before people started staring at him.

"Ms. Clark, I'm not trying to deny that three gangsters attacked you and then got killed. But this slender man you described-well, half the stuff you said he did are impossible. Faceless people, tentacles growing out of people, telekinesis, and teleportation are just fictional superpowers" Armando explained. This did very little to calm Erica down, though thankfully, she lowered her voice.

"But, he was there! I saw him! That slender man tore them apart limb-by-limb, and he spoke in this echoing voice-!"

Armando contacted two police officers and told them that, for the time being, Erica needed to be sent to a hospital due to her outlandish story. Once they dragged her away, he asked another cop what had happened to Adam and she said he had been arrested and taken to police headquarters, where he was most likely being interrogated right now. He took some pictures of the crime scene before he departed.

_I can't wait to see the look on Hellner's face when I show him this story! He's gonna have to focus all his rants on someone else now, and I don't think it'll be easy for him!_ he thought as he drove back to the L.A. Times Building.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Not good enough?! What the hell do you mean, _not good enough?!_" Armando blurted out as Thomas Hellner tossed the draft right back to him.

" I mean, not good enough!" Hellner barked. "Jesus, do I have to get a translator for you?"

"But, Mr. Hellner! I triple-checked my grammar, spelling, and punctuation, I made to sure to get the photos, I even got the names of everyone I talked to!" Armando said. "What more do you want? I spent six hours on this story!"

"This is just one story. It's not enough material to be front page worthy. What you need is more about this vigilante to get people excited about him! More eyewitness accounts, more police statements, and an artists rendering of who this guy is" Hellner explained.

"But sir, this is all I've got about the vigilante!"

As if on cue, Hellner's phone rang. Picking it up, Hellner at first scowled at the sudden interruption, but then slowly grinned like a nasty sonofabitch. He turned back to Armando as he put the phone down.

"Son, our prayers have just been answered! I just got a call about a shootout and multiple murders at a neighborhood on 10th Street, and it appears our tentacled friend was the culprit again. I want you to drive down there, and don't you dare stop until you've gotten _everything_! Understood?"

"Yes, Mr. Hellner!"

Armando hurried out of the office and, as he got into the elevator, he couldn't help but sigh.

_This is gonna be one helluva __**long **__story._

_(__**NEXT ISSUE:**_As more and more reports of this bizarre vigilante begin cropping up all over Los Angeles, Armando might have just bitten off more than he can chew when the vigilante crosses the most powerful gang leader in the city. Can Armando be lucky he's just making the news as well as reporting it, or will somebody else have to report on Armando's fate as another sad victim of L.A.? All this in _Slender Man #2:Retaliation.)_


	3. Retaliation

_#2:Retaliation_

Even though it was now officially known as Olympic Boulevard, many Los Angelites still knew and remembered it as 10th Street, the Los Angeles Times' publisher and editor-in chief Thomas Hellner being one of them, to the point of forcing his journalists to write 10th Street in their articles. Stretching from 4th Street on the west side to Santa Monica on the east side, it was home to such landmarks as the Grammy Museum and Los Angeles High School.

None of that mattered to Armando Ortiz at the moment, though, as he had been sent by Hellner to report on a shootout and nineteen murders at a neighborhood on the Boulevard, specifically at the northwestern end of Boyle Heights. Just the day before, he had been sent to report on an attempted rape by three Crips and the triple homicide of them at East 3rd Street of Skid Row, and after listening to the woman who was about to be raped, Erica Clark, she had told him of an approximately eight foot tall, very thin, suit wearing humanoid who seemed to have tentacles growing out of his back and no face or hair or eyes.

Now, he was here to see if there was any connection between what had happened at East 3rd Street and Olympic Boulevard/Boyle Heights. If there was more he could learn about the weird vigilante who had slaughtered the three Crips, it would be a real boon for the Times' sales, and it would finally get Hellner off his back.

Armando showed his I.D. to one of the police officers to get past the crime scene tape before he noticed blood stains; _huge _blood stains. It covered the sidewalks, lawns, and even porches. He noticed several dozen bullets on the ground being scooped up by the forensics, and decided to snap a few pictures of the bullets.

"Hey, asshole!" one of the forensics growled at him as he rubbed his eyes. "You mind turning the flash off on that phone?"

"It can't be turned off" Armando shot back spitefully. He could tell that the detective was offended by his tone, but he was smart to drop it as he walked away, grumbling to himself.

He then decided to get some pictures of the blood stains, knowing full well that just like sex, violence sold. Besides, it wasn't like Hellner cared if he got complaints from readers about graphic pictures in the stories; Hellner would be more than happy to publish a story of his own that was nothing but a rant against any squeamish readers.

"So…" Armando began as he approached a police officer, "just what happened here? I heard there were nineteen deaths and a shootout."

"More than just that, apparently" the officer scoffed. "From what the residents told us, some..._thing _butchered nineteen drug dealers here. But we have only one eyewitness who actually saw this monster, because that's the only word I can think of that fits this vigilante."

"Well...can you first tell me what some of the residents heard, then take me to the witness?" Armando asked uncertainly, getting a weird feeling about this story.

"How 'bout we walk-and-talk?" the cop said as he walked further down the street. Armando simply shrugged before following the officer.

The officer told him about how the residents heard several very vulgar shouts before the horrifying sound of gunfire erupted. It didn't last very long, though, as the gunfire quickly died down and was soon replaced by ugly screams of pain and terror. Several residents saw blood splatter onto their front lawns, and one old man even locked himself in and turned off all of the lights in his house before calling the police because his front windows and most of his porch was suddenly splattered with blood.

After coming onto the scene, the police had found out that the nineteen men-eleven of them black, five of them white, and three of them hispanic-were drug dealers for El Miedo Humana's crime syndicate. Armando felt a sense of shock at that; El Miedo Humana's syndicate was currently the most powerful not just in California, but in the entire Southwestern United States and West Coast. For over six years now, the Los Angeles Police Department and agencies such as the FBI had tried to catch him, but so far, they had not even been able to put down a list of suspects.

_This vigilante must have trained a lot to think he can mess with Humana's syndicate, much less be able to tear apart nineteen of his drug pushers_, Armando thought to himself as the officer recounted the deaths of several of the dealers, including one whose spine had been torn out and thrown into another dealer.

However, even though he did not know this vigilante and had never associated with him, Armando also felt scared for him. El Miedo Humana was well known for crushing anybody who dared to so much as think that they could mess with him, and Humana paid well for the best hitmen he could find.

"Right, here we are" the officer said, snapping Armando out of his musings as they came across a hispanic man who looked to be in his mid-forties; his hairline was receding at the front, while his sideburns ran down to his thick beard, which mixed with his huge moustache. He wore a black and blue Budweiser tee shirt and his jeans were faded.

"Hello, sir" Armando greeted the man. The man simply squinted his eyes and shook his head.

_Shit; he can't speak English_, Armando thought in annoyance.

"Sir, my name is Armando Ortiz, and I work for the Los Angeles Times. I have come here to report on the murders, and I have been told that you were the only one who saw the vigilante that killed the drug dealers" Armando said in Spanish. The man's brow furrowed at the mention of that, and he looked down at his shoes.

"Good God, it-it was hideous!" the man recalled.

"What's your name sir?" Armando asked.

"Jorge; Jorge Reyes. I was watching the television, surfing through the channels; you know how there's nothing good on TV anymore. Out of nowhere, I hear some guys out on the street yelling, screaming words like, "You little fucking bitch!" and, "Don't move closer, you gay piece of shit!" I turned off the light and ducked under my coffee table when I heard a bunch of gunshots; some of them sounded like your usual pistols, but then there were these blasts, like shotguns! Some of the guys started screaming like lunatics, and a lot of them sounded real painful. Then, the screams and gunfire just stopped, real suddenly. I don't speak English, so I didn't call the cops; but I did unlock my front door and open it a little bit, and peeked outside."

"So that's when you saw the vigilante" Armando noted; it was more of a statement than a questions. The man nodded.

"I looked down the street, the part where it curves towards the next neighborhood. There was this slender man, wearing some kind of suit; it was bald, but its back was turned to me, so I couldn't see its face. There were these really sharp green things coming out of its back, looked like tentacles, and it was just walking along, standing really straight. Probably eight feet. I was closing my door, when that slender man turned around really fast, and it looked right at me! Well, I think it looked at me...it had no face, not even any eyes! Didn't see any ears either. Let me tell you, I closed my damn door as fast as I could" Jorge finished.

"Did this slender man teleport or use super strength or anything like that?" Armando asked.

"No, I didn't see him use any superpowers, you wiseass motherf-!"

"Sir, it was an honest question! I wasn't trying to be funny!" Armando growled. He noticed how he was using the same defensive tone as when he responded to the briefly blinded forensic.

_Note to self:quit responding like a whiny kindergartner!_, Armando thought bitterly.

"Er...thank you, Mr. Reyes."

Jorge Reyes simply mumbled as he walked off.

Armando decided to take a few more pictures of a body bag and some drug stashes that the detectives had not yet confiscated. He lifted the crime scene tape and was reaching for his car keys when his phone started ringing.

_What the hell does that guy want from me __**now?**_, Armando thought as he saw that it was Hellner.

"Sir?" Armando asked.

"Ortiz, drive your ass to Lebanon Street of South Park as fast as you possibly can!" Hellner shouted into the phone, his voice easily betraying the giddiness that the man was feeling. He was speaking so loud that Armando had to hold his phone at least four inches from his ear.

"Why?"

"Why do you think?!" Hellner snapped. "I just got a call about another one of these weird vigilante killings!"

"Oh, Christ…"

"What the hell did you just say Ortiz?!"

"Uh, nothing, Mr. Hellner! I'm getting into my car as we speak!" Armando told him.

"Well hurry up! The case just came up, and I want our paper to be there before any of those tabloids!" Hellner shot with glee before he hung up.

"At least I'm gonna get some actual photos of bodies for Hellner from this new killing. The boss is gonna eat that shit up real fast!" Armando sighed as he slammed the door shut and jammed his key into the ignition.

_**-Half an hour later-**_

"Alright, Mr. Perry, you say that you saw these murders up close, right?"

"Yes, yes, I did!" the witness hurried, his eyes wide with lingering horror and disgust as he nodded incredibly quickly. The man in question, Jonathan Perry, was a sixty three year old black man with deep and long wrinkles in his forehead and cheeks, while his hair was incredibly white in several areas and charcoal gray in various others, and there was no hair at all on the sides of his head. Perry was dressed in knee-length jean shorts and an Izod v-neck tee shirt, a good fit for the eighty six degree Fahrenheit day., and in stark contrast to Armando's usual combination of jeans and a brown leather jacket over his shirt.

"So what _exactly _happened?" Armando asked.

"I was walking down from my apartment, decided to do my afternoon walk from the apartment to West 21st Street; the doctor said that I needed to bring down my blood pressure. But then, I hear that godawful music called crap...oh sorry, I mean _rap_, coming from down this street. A cherry red Volkswagen lowrider started creeping up. I knew it was just some wannabe hooligans from high school, trying to impress some girls, so I didn't pay too much attention to it. But when I came to that mailbox over there"-Perry pointed to a bright blue U.S. Postal Office mailbox to the right- "they stopped, and the drivers and left passengers windows came down. These two real ugly gangsters poked their heads out, wearing red bandanas and white undershirts and smilin' their ugly smiles! I heard some kind of pumping noise, and that left passenger pulled out a double barreled shotgun, and he pointed it right at my face! The driver held his hand out and told me that if I didn't give him my wallet, then they were gonna blow my brains out."

"Did you give him the wallet?" Armando asked.

"I stood there, really shocked. If I said 'no', or tried to run away, or moved forward to try to disarm the passenger, I would die! So I took out my wallet, and put it in his hand. The driver and left passenger started laughing really hard, and the driver told the passenger, "Darry, blow this mutherfucka's head off! Clean off!" He pulled the trigger, and this bright yellow flash just blinded me; my ears rang, like they were about to burst at any second. But, I could still feel myself standing there. I was still alive. I opened my eyes, and my vision was still really hazy, but I could see the bullets floating in mid-air; the lowrider was still there, and the driver and that passenger named Darry just stared at the bullets, slack-jawed and everything! And then, the bullets dropped to the ground…"

"...And that's when the vigilante came" Armando stated, knowing how this story would end.

"Yup! It just rushed in from the side of the left passenger door, out of nowhere; it was like it-it _teleported! _It was _really _tall and skinny, dressed in some fancy black suit with a red tie. I didn't see a single bit of hair on its head, neck, or hands, and the thing had _**no face or ears! **_There were, what was it, eight? Yeah, eight tentacles wriggling out of its back;Lord, it was _ugly!_" Perry recounted.

"So what happened when it appeared?"

"It tore the shotgun out of Darry's hands, and then jammed it through his chest! I could hear his ribcage cracking and breaking apart, and pieces of the ribs fell out. That slender man pulled the trigger and the gangster's back just exploded; blood showered the seat behind him and the inside of the rear window. It threw the shotgun to the side and the car sped away; the driver's arm was still sticking out, waving my wallet around like a loon and screaming like a five year old girl after she ate cereal with meth instead of milk. But then-oh, man, you had to be there to see it! To really believe it! That slender man just popped out of thin air in front of the car! I mean he _really _teleported! He smashed his fist down onto the hood and the whole front of the car was torn in half, and he pulled the driver out; the hoodlum throw my wallet away. I ran and snatched it, and the guy gets slammed down onto the sidewalk. There's this nasty cracking noise, and the driver started shrieking and hollering even more, and I knew right there that his back just got broken, and I'm thinking, "Jesus, this thing has _super strength _too?" I look up, the thing lifted its right leg, and the poor driver's head just exploded! You ever seen a can of tomato paste explode?"

"Umm...no."

"Well, it was just like that! _SPLAT! _The two other gangsters left in the car ran out, crying and hollering, but then that thing teleports in front of them! The gangster from the right back seat got sliced up like sushi; that thing's tentacles moved like lightning, cutting up the bastard's chest and stomach, and I could see blood splashing out onto the street. The front passenger tried to punch it, but it teleports again and punched him in the chest. He flew into the car, and as his body turned, I can see a hole in his chest; blood was running out like water from a leaky pipe. The thing looked up at me, and I just ran as fast as my old legs can carry me! I called the police on the way" Jonathan Perry finished.

"I gotta tell you, that's quite a story, Mr. Perry" Armando said, still uncertain how anything could teleport, have super strength, or be able to move around easily without a face or ears.

"I wish I could tell you that it's just a story" Perry sighed, shaking his head.

"Well, I appreciate you taking the time to tell me this, Mr Perry. I'll try to see if I can find out just what this vigilante is, even if it means that it's gonna get me killed."

"Good, good" Jonathan Perry said. "This world needs more people like you, willing to give their life for a real cause, not for colors like those bastards that tried to kill me, and not for more and more money like Hector Mendoza; guys like him keep getting fat off the poor."

Just as Perry finished, Armando's phone rang.

It was Hellner.

"Dammit…" Armando cursed under his breath, knowing just why he was getting this call.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

The two Hispanic men, who were of medium height and had muscular builds that really were driven by steroids, knew better than to run towards their base with expressions of fear. They _had _to keep straight faces, or else he was going to slice off their limbs and genitals with barbed wire...if he was in a good mood.

Despite the "tough guy" scowls on their faces, though, they cursed the fact that they couldn't run faster than a jog. Deep down, they were terrified; not just of their boss and what he might have to say, but of that faceless demon…_**thing **_that had attacked them and their rivals. It was a good thing that their gang was starting to refuse taking up tattoos; otherwise, the police would have easily booked them by now. Then again, getting arrested and having to face their boss were both still preferable to having to so much as see that _thing _again.

They finally reached the front door of their base, which was specifically chosen because there was just one door in and one door out. Standing just between them and the door was a tall, shirtless Hispanic man whose chest was barely recognizable due to the many gunshot and barbed wire wounds, and whose stomach was so badly burned to the point that it was pink and bulged and twisted out like pus.

"Password?" the guard grunted in a deep, almost inhuman voice that barely sounded like Spanish or any other human language, though it wasn't an act or anything he was born with; the guard knew that smoking since you were thirteen years old was hazardous to your health, but he didn't care.

"Man fuck you, bitch! You know who we are, don't try to play any fuckin' games wi-!" the left man, whose jeans were torn badly and sagging, spat until he was stopped by the guard, who leaned forward and grabbed the man by his throat and lifted him two feet above the ground.

"What's the password, BITCH?!" the guard barked into the left man's face.

"M-Mata, Con-Controla, V-V-Viola!" the man stuttered, his face becoming as purple as a plum before the guard dropped him as if though he was a lowly bag of garbage.

The guard turned around and pulled out a key before he started unlocking the door, while the right man helped the still dazed left man up onto his feet.

"Get in" the guard told them. They didn't need another indication before they rushed inside, darting through the dimly lit corridors and staircases so quickly they didn't have enough time to hear the guard slam the door shut and lock it.

Finally, they came across a door guarded by two shotgun wielding guards, though they simply looked at the two exhausted men with shock before they moved aside and let them in.

A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling, just barely giving off enough light to reveal the ten other common street gangsters-all of them Hispanic as well-and the man sitting on the beaten old office chair in the center of the room.

"Now what's the problem here, gentleman?" he asked calmly and politely as he slowly pulled a silver .25 pistol out of his right pocket.

Like the two men before him, the man was dressed in a white undershirt, though his arms were both heavily tattooed to the point that it was hard to tell what was actual skin and what was ink. His pants were neat and clean, made of combed black leather. His head was shaved bald, and his calculating blue eyes squinted at the two men, sizing them up as if though determining how to kill each of them. Perhaps his most distinguishing feature, though, was his large nose, which, despite its size, did not jut out, but instead looked almost completely pressed into the mans head.

He was Fernando Saldivar, the primera palabra-"first voice"-of the local Los Angeles cliques of Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13. Saldivar had used the standard Salvatrucha methods of violent retribution to great effect, leading to the collective cliques of the MS-13 to become the most powerful street gang in Los Angeles. However, Saldivar had his own policy whenever it came to those who were cowards or shamed the gang, and he had discovered that using a calm and precise tone when speaking had a greater ability to inspire respect, loyalty, and above all else, **fear **in his men. It was because of that irony-along with his appearance-that he had chosen the nickname of El Cráneo Gritando.

The Shrieking Skull.

Of the two men, the right man was the first to speak up. "Well, Gritando, the two of us were down on West 6th Street. We were with the guys, bought ourselves some drinks, told some pigs to fuck off, when some black and yellow fags come walkin' down the street, thinkin' they can walk on our ground!" he spat, referring to the Los Angeles chapter/"tribe" of the Latin Kings. The Kings and Salvatrucha had hated each other for so long that nobody could even bother to remember when it had started, with the Kings pointing out that MS-13 was not as well organized and structured as their gang and that the MS-13 often helped exploit immigrants as part of their brutality.

"So you ran from a few Kings?" Saldivar slowly asked, not allowing a single hint of emotion to show on his face. It was so much easier to make them sweat when they couldn't read his moods.

"Hey! He ain't finished!" the left man snapped, though he very quickly regretted it when Saldivar slowly turned his gaze towards him.

"Continue" he told the right man.

"So, the guys and us, we were gonna go shoot those bitches up, show them what happens when they fuck with our territory! But then...man, this _**monster **_just popped out of nowhere!" the right man said, fear slipping into his voice as he spoke those last eight words.

"Monster?" Saldivar asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, that's what it was! Real damn tall, white skinned, skinny, black suit with a red tie, bald, no ears, no goddamn _face! _This thing just started tearin' us and those Kings up, with its bare hands and these tentacles coming out of its back!" the right man continued.

"What you two are saying is not possible" Saldivar simply and dryly told them almost immediately after hearing the story.

"_WHAT?! _Man, this demon was liftin' guys without even touchin' them, punching them ten feet across the street, gettin' shot up only for the bullets to fall out and for the wounds to close up! It was unstoppable!" the right man yelled at Saldivar, who cocked his gun as the man yelled.

"So...you just ran?" Saldivar asked.

"Well, DUH! We weren't just gonna stand there and let this giant monster tear us to pieces like it did to those other guys! This thing was right out of our nightm-!" the left man was saying, but he was cut off, in more ways than one.

Saldivar raised his gun and took aim at the left mans lower jaw. The force of the gun blast jerked the gun and Saldivar's hand upwards several inches, with the bullet instead tearing through the area just above the upper lip. The bullet utterly destroyed his upper jaw before exiting through the upper tip of his neck. Next, Saldivar fired at the right mans right cheek. Forced upwards, the bullet sped right through his right eye and exited through the lower back of his head, indicated by the red mist coming from behind the mans head.

"Now, I want to make something very clear, to all of you" Saldivar almost whispered to the remaining men in the room as he stood up, who were now unable to restrain their fear, and tried their best to look away from the bodies of two of their comrades. It didn't help that the blood from the two slain men had splattered onto the light bulb, painting the room red with a hellish light.

"You kill somebody that tries to fuck with us, you're gonna get your just reward. Die fighting, you're a marty. But you run away, I don't care who it is! You're just disgracing the name of Mara Salvatrucha, and these two faggots were lucky that I killed them with my gun!" Saldivar hissed, before he flashed a toothy, obviously sadistic grin.

"And for anybody that thinks they can fuck with me:I'm gonna find this vigilante, slice his head clean off with my machete and nail it to the front door, and tell everyone to _come get some!_"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Being the founder, CEO, President, and Executive Chairman of Packsler Digital Corporations, Hector Mendoza was one of the richest men on the face of the Earth, with an estimated revenue of fifteen point three billion US dollars and having his place on the Forbes 100 Richest People; then there was the fact that he was a real life case of Love-it-or-Hate-it, as many-mostly Americans-celebrated the fact that he had grown up poor on the streets of San Francisco and had still been able to build one of the world's biggest companies and pointed out that Hector Mendoza was the American Dream incarnate. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there were those who demonized him and Packsler, citing the fact that many of the materials his company used to build computer hard drives and memory chips were raw minerals that were being mined and shipped forth by slave rings and child labor, and that despite Packsler's headquarters being just five miles from the south side of Los Angeles, most of his products were made in Chinese factories that were more akin to sweat shops.

_So long as they don't know of my real empire_, Mendoza thought to himself with a smile on his face as he sat in the comfortable black leather chair in his private office.

Hector Mendoza was not a very threatening presence physically, as he was already fifty seven years old, but he knew that he didn't need large muscles to intimidate his opposition when he could simply use the strength of his criminal syndicate, which dwarfed any mere bodybuilder.

Known in the criminal underworld as El Miedo Humana, Mendoza was the leader of the most powerful crime syndicate not only in California, but in the whole Southwestern United States and West Coast. His syndicate dabbled in everything from assassinations to extortion to bribery to arms trafficking, with it even cooperating with several of the war lords in Sierra Leone and the like when it came to smuggling blood diamonds and human trafficking, and facing serious competition from the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza organization in Kobe and Tokyo.

Undoubtedly, his syndicate's biggest business was drug trafficking. Abandoned warehouses and factories of his pumped out various expensive drugs-primarily marijuana and heroin-on an almost industrial scale, with a network of dealers spread out all over the country. The dealers would get a shipment of the drugs, sell it to a well paying customer, and then the dealer would keep half of that money while the other half went to Mendoza. Any middle men who tried to take Mendoza's money along the way would be quickly and ruthlessly slaughtered to send everyone a very clear and simple message. His best dealer, though, was Alex Shepard, the star quarterback of the North Chicago Community High School, and who made an incredibly large fortune from his marijuana sales; Shepard's sales were also a seemingly endless thorn in the side of Nathan Dillard, the leader of Chicago's most powerful syndicate.

_So much the better_, Mendoza thought as the door swung open and two men walked in hesitantly.

What really made Mendoza and his syndicate practically untouchable was the fact that only two other people actually knew of his identity as El Miedo Humana. Their real names were a secret Mendoza did not wish to reveal to anyone, but to everyone, they were "Golde", the one in charge of monitoring the "quiet" businesses such as prostitution; and "Watchman", the large, muscled, and grizzled man in charge of keeping tabs on street enforcement and retaliation.

Golde and Watchman took their seats across from Mendoza, who, after a minute of nervous anticipation, spoke.

"Your reason for bothering me at such a late moment in the night as this?" Mendoza asked impatiently, grabbing the ice cold glass of distilled liquor and sipping at it while licking at the ice cubes within.

"Nineteen of our drug dealers were very brutally murdered at a neighborhood in Boyle Heights" Watchman answered, not daring to beat around the bush when his boss was this agitated already.

"_WHAT?" _Mendoza gasped, spitting the liquor onto his desk and slamming his fist down onto it. Both of his messengers cringed in horror, simply glad that they were not the table.

"Who the hell did this?!" Mendoza roared, standing up and clutching the ends of the table.

"We've gotten word from the street that it was some kind of monstrous vigilante. Approximately eight feet tall, very skinny, black suit and red tie, bald, no ears or a face" Watchman told him. Mendoza's expression changed from boiling anger to a look of complete confusement.

"Are you joking with me?" Mendoza said, falling back into his chair, utterly dumbfounded beyond words.

"There have been several other attacks of this kind, apparently committed by the same vigilante. All criminals, all brutally torn to pieces" Golde told him.

Mendoza thought it over for a minute.

Then he started laughing.

"So, some headcase in a costume is starting to kill the criminals of this city? Well, isn't that a card I didn't expect to come into play! You know what I want you two to do? Nothing!" Mendoza said before he started laughing yet again.

"What are you-?" Golde was saying before Mendoza simply laughed and reached across to pat him on the shoulder.

"What are nineteen drug dealers to my syndicate? I have a whole network all over this country! Let this freak continue his war on crime here; he hasn't done anything to really hurt us. If he does decide to interfere with my plans again, then we'll sick someone on him, but for now, let's sit back and watch this new show!"

Golde and Watchman simply sat there, terrified. They knew better than to try to reason with El Miedo Humana when he was in such a good mood...or a bad one.

(_**NEXT ISSUE: **_Armando begins trying to track down the strange new vigilante in hopes of finding out who it is and what motivates them, but that mission has to be put to the side as Fernando Saldivar begins to mobilize MS-13. Meanwhile, Hector Mendoza/El Miedo Humana watches from the sidelines as the very world begins to change, in more ways than one. All this in _Slender Man #3:Retaliation #2._)


End file.
